I am the explainer-in-chief of crypto
A little about me
I was introduced to the future unwittingly, when a friend asked me to buy her a bitcoin. It was 2013, and I had no idea what I was doing. The experience left an impression, so I decided to learn more. But the more I studied, the less I understood. And yet somehow, the more I believed.
Blockchain technology and the digital assets that it enables are not the natural evolution of any one field. They are the amalgamation of several—a mixed ancestry that makes them both transformative and confusing.
I’ve spent almost a decade being confused about crypto so you don’t have to be. The best way to understand something is by figuring out how to explain it to others.
My first book, The Story of the Blockchain, is a beginner’s guide that is neither technical nor ideological. My second book, Re-Architecting Trust, is a deeper dive into how things work today and why they are about to change. My Medium blog, personal essays, and various other kinds of media represent a more up to date diary of my thinking.
I am an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School where I’ve been lecturing on crypto since 2019. I give talks to private audiences and consult for companies large and small on the intersection of the old and the new.
Transformative technologies tend to elicit strong emotions, both for and against. I make my living sitting in the middle, educating the skeptics on the world to come and the faithful on what they may have missed.